90 terabytes of facial recognition

Posted on October 20, 2017 by April Spicer

China is building the world’s most powerful facial recognition system with the power to identify any one of its 1.3 billion citizens within three seconds. The government states the system is being developed for security and official uses such as tracking wanted suspects and public administration and that commercial application using information sourced from the database will not be allowed under current regulations.

“[But] a policy can change due to the development of the economy and increasing demand from society,” said Chen Jiansheng, an associate professor at the department of electrical engineering at Tsinghua University and a member of the ministry’s Committee of Standardisation overseeing technical developments in police forces.

Chinese companies are already taking the commercial application of facial recognition technology to new heights. Students can now enter their university halls, travellers can board planes without using a boarding pass and diners can pay for a meal at KFC. Some other restaurants have even offered discounts to customers based on a machine that ranks their looks according to an algorithm. Customers with “beautiful” characteristics – such as symmetrical features – get better scores than those with noses that are “too big” or “too small” and those that get better scores will get cheaper meals.

More at South China Morning Post and ABS-CBN.

Why It’s Hot
Another weekly installment of balancing convenience and claims of safety with privacy and ethics. China is pushing us faster than most other countries to address this question sooner rather than later.

Pop music’s new producer? Streaming platforms…

Posted on October 6, 2017 by April Spicer

Hit-making songwriters and producers are tailoring tracks to fit a musical landscape dominated by streaming.“In sessions, people have genuinely been saying, ‘Oh, we need to make something that sounds like Spotify,’” says Emily Warren, a singer-songwriter behind hits including Charli XCX’s “Boys” and the Chainsmokers’ “Don’t Let Me Down.” According to the artists, songwriters, producers, and executives interviewed for this piece, no aspect of a song, from production to vocal performance, is unaffected by the regime change.

Throughout the history of recorded music, formats have helped shape what we hear. For examplesur ideas about how long a single should be date back to what could fit on a 45 RPM 7″ vinyl record. But the unprecedented wealth of data that streaming services use to curate their increasingly influential playlists gives the industry real-time feedback on what’s working, leading to rigidly defined and formulaic music.

For example, in order for a stream to count toward chart tallies and, reportedly, for royalty payouts, a given song must be played for at least 30 seconds. That’s why, while how a song starts has always been important in pop, with streaming it’s more crucial than ever. Another element tying the streaming era’s music together is the way we listen to it: The phones and laptop speakers we often use can have a direct impact on the music that sounds best through them.

Why It’s Hot
How technology advancements are shaping behaviors and expectations is always fascinating. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction!

Slack AI says maybe you need a mid-afternoon snack…

Posted on September 29, 2017 by April Spicer

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield recently spoke to MIT Technology Review about the ways the company plans to use AI to keep people from feeling overwhelmed with data. Some interesting tidbits from the interview…

When asked about goals for Slack’s AI research group, Butterfield pointed to search. “You could imagine an always-on virtual chief of staff who reads every single message in Slack and then synthesizes all that information based on your preferences, which it has learned about over time. And with implicit and explicit feedback from you, it would recommend a small number of things that seem most important at the time.”

When asked what else the AI group was researching, Butterfield answered Organizational Insights. “I would—and I think everyone would—like to have a private version of a report that looks at things like: Do you talk to men differently than you talk to women? Do you talk to superiors differently than you talk to subordinates? Do you use different types of language in public vs. private? In what conversations are you more aggressive, and in what conversations are you more kind? If it turns out you tend to be accommodating, kind, and energetic in the mornings, and short-tempered and impatient in the afternoon, then maybe you need to have a midafternoon snack.”

Have Amazon and Walmart met their match?

Posted on September 22, 2017 by April Spicer

German discounter Aldi is betting billions it can win over American shoppers. How? By offering them way fewer choices than rival retailers.

The unlikely proposition has worked nearly everywhere Aldi has set foot. The company is now one of the biggest retail groups in the world with more than 10,000 locations, businesses in 18 countries and annual revenues approaching €70/$83 billion.

The American grocery market, one of the largest and most competitive in the world, is on the cusp of dramatic change since Amazon.com Inc. acquired Whole Foods Market Inc. this summer and Google struck a partnership with Wal-Mart.

But the Germans have a plan, forged in the rubble of World War II. Aldi offers a deliberately pared-down selection – most stores stock between 1,300 and 1,600 items. By comparison, Wal-Mart’s Supercenters have in recent years carried around 120,000 items. On a basket of 30 typical household items, Aldi’s prices are on average almost 17% lower than Wal-Mart’s.

Aldi is gambling it is more in tune with the American tastes, rolling out small, nimble stores instead of sprawling warehouses and supermarkets that take longer to navigate.

Why It’s Hot
It’s another example of how major players are betting on simplicity, standardization and speed. And a reason to pause and consider the trade off between choice and control versus convenience and ease.

How does your garden grow?

Posted on September 14, 2017 by April Spicer

Deere & Company has signed an agreement to acquire Blue River Technology, a leader in applying machine learning to agriculture.

Blue River has designed and integrated computer vision and machine learning technology that will enable growers to reduce the use of herbicides by spraying only where weeds are present, optimizing the use of inputs in farming – a key objective of precision agriculture.

“Blue River is advancing precision agriculture by moving farm management decisions from the field level to the plant level,” said Jorge Heraud, co-founder and CEO of Blue River Technology. “We are using computer vision, robotics, and machine learning to help smart machines detect, identify, and make management decisions about every single plant in the field.”

The QR code is dead…long live the QR code

Posted on September 8, 2017 by April Spicer

We’ve talked a lot about the rise of QR codes in Asia, but they may now finally be moving from being a “joke” to being more widely adopted in other places as well. They enable everything from online to offline (O2O) marketplaces, which are huge in China, to augmented reality.

Things people already do, but now with QR codes…

A member of the bridal party wears a QR code as necklace to collect digital money from wedding guests.

Users in China simply scan a QR code printed on the bicycle to unlock them and start riding.

Including QR codes on large billboards is now very common across China.

More ways here: 16 Ways QR Codes are Being Used in China

Why It’s Hot
While the death of the QR code has been foretold since its inception, the simplicity and ubiquity mean it continues to hold on – and even grow more popular in certain cultures.

This new AR app lets you point and translate

Posted on August 18, 2017 by April Spicer

Thanks to the recent release of Apple’s ARKit, front end developer Frances Ng has created a point-and-translate app. That’s right, simply point your phone at the item you want to translate and if the item is recognized, associated language options will display.

Here it is in action.

Whether you’re looking to learn a new language in the comfort of your own home or in a foreign land looking for a helping hand, the app is a great example of often-too-rare AR utility.

The UX magic is possible through a combination of Apple’s ARKit and an existing database of about 1,000 learned objects that Ng ported into the app. While Ng says her app is just a demo and she has no immediate plans to take it to market, what’s so remarkable is that while companies like Microsoft spent many years and dollars on mastering object recognition, Ng was able to build her app in a weekend, simply because it’s building off so much past work that’s now freely available and baked into platforms like Apple’s.

https://www.fastcodesign.com/90136943/want-to-learn-a-new-language-with-this-ar-app-just-point-and-tap?utm_content=buffer58149&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Why It’s Hot

With the new AR development kits, we should definitely see a run of useful apps like this (as well as I’m sure lots of non-useful examples!)

It’s also an example of how more and more development is being done off of robust platforms increasing speed to market and standardizing patterns for fast consumer orientation

Tesla 3: Look ma – no dashboard!

Posted on August 11, 2017 by April Spicer

The Tesla Model 3 has been billed as a groundbreaking car. And in one respect, it is: It doesn’t have an instrument cluster.

Although it is unusual to have the most important displays and controls on the left side of the screen instead of the center or right, keep in mind the screen’s location in the center of the car, to the driver’s right. A large speedometer is located at the top left of the screen, which turns red if you are speeding. Below that is a graphic of the car. When parked you can open the hood, trunk, and charging door. The navigation and music selection screens work much the same way you would expect in any other infotainment system, tablet, or smartphone.

One fan has put together a prototype that those in the know say is pretty true-to-form.

Voice controls are basic for now – e.g. “navigate to…” – but are rumored to be a big part of the next software upgrade.

Business Insider: The Tesla Model 3’s interior is a study in automotive minimalism

Why It’s Hot
It’s one of the more significant updates to car dashboard U.I. in a long time – it will be interesting to hear the usability feedback now that the cars are being delivered. It also marks a more aggressive step towards autonomous cars.

Amazon’s next big industry conquest

Posted on July 28, 2017 by April Spicer

Amazon has a has a “secret” skunkworks lab called 1492, dedicated to health care tech and complementing another Amazon unit announced earlier this year to disrupt the world of pharmaceuticals.

The new team is currently looking at opportunities that involve pushing and pulling data from legacy electronic medical record systems. It is also looking to build a platform for telemedicine and exploring health applications for existing Amazon hardware, including Echo and Dash Wand. It’s not clear whether Amazon is building any new health devices, but sources didn’t rule it out.

1492 isn’t the only team inside Amazon that is working in health and life sciences. Amazon Web Services has also hired a slew of health experts to beat out Microsoft and Google for contracts with large hospitals and pharmaceutical vendors. The company has also invested in a health startup called Grail, an early cancer-testing startup founded by a Google exec.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/26/amazon-1492-secret-health-tech-project.html

Why It’s Hot
Um do you really need to ask?

Brandless is the new brand

Posted on July 13, 2017 by April Spicer

This past week the internet was abuzz with news of CPG startup Brandless. Headed by serial entrepreneurs Tina Sharkey and Ido Leffler, Brandless is selling consumer staples like food and healthcare direct to consumers all priced at $3.

“It felt like modern consumption was really broken,” says cofounder and CEO Tina Sharkey. Millennial consumers don’t want to buy their parents’ brands, she argues, and all brands are too expensive, marked up to cover the costs of distribution, warehousing and retail space. By eliminating what she refers to as this “brand tax,” she figured that Brandless could slash the costs of basic packaged consumer goods that people buy regularly, and potentially become a significant player in a $2 trillion market dominated by the likes of P&G and General Mills.

But the biggest difference between Brandless and all the major CPG players is its business model: Rather than sell through traditional retail stores, the company is only offering its goods online. By doing so, the company will have what few of the CPG giants have – a direct relationship with the consumers of its products. It plans to exploit this relationship through a heavy investment in data and by building a sense of community through memberships and philanthropy (with every purchase, the company will donate to Feeding America).

https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/11/brandless/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2017/07/11/brandless-hopes-to-shake-up-consumer-products-with-direct-to-consumer-basics-for-3/#694a312e3906

Why It’s Hot
Move over Warby Parker, Casper and the rest. You’re not the only ones willing to take on the big boys.

And rather than relying on product brands, there’s just one brand in this game to promote – and it’s Brandless.

Google giveth, and Google taketh away

Posted on June 30, 2017 by April Spicer

Google is playing with my heart again.

Earlier this week Google announced that it will stop scanning the contents of Gmail in order to deliver targeted ads. Google said it’s stopping this practice in order to “more closely align” its business and consumer products. Businesses – who pay for G Suite – have the power to put their foot down where consumers do not.

At the same time Google announced it is launching an auto-reply system that scans emails and generates possible responses to choose from.

The new functionality, added to the app store versions of Gmail, works by analyzing a large, anonymized body of email to generate possible responses. Machine-learning systems then rank these to pick the “best responses to the email at hand”. Google is keen to emphasise that its system knows its limits. Not everything merits an automated response – only about one-third of emails are covered.

Most email is unnecessary and most email responses are perfunctory acknowledgements – verbal read-receipts. In the war for control of your inbox, Gmail may have given us an important missile defence shield. Nice! Thanks! Love it!

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2017/jun/27/nice-thanks-love-it-gmails-auto-reply-is-perfect-for-the-lazy-emailer?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Why It’s Hot (or not)
As the behemoths continue to get bigger, their power to impact the ways we interact (or not) continues to grow. The war between ease and humanity continues.

MailChimp is broadening its horizons

Posted on June 23, 2017 by April Spicer

Think MailChimp just supports small business email marketing? Think again.

Based in Atlanta–far outside Silicon Valley’s bubble of venture-funded would-be unicorns–the company has 600-plus employees and did more than $400 million in revenue last year. More than 15 million customers sent 246 billion emails in 2016.

But the future of the company, CEO Ben Chestnut says, is “to take MailChimp magic we give to email, and sprinkle it on other marketing channels.”

A year ago, MailChimp introduced a recommendation engine–akin to the ones devised by big companies such as Amazon–that let its customers plunk product suggestions into the emails they sent their customers. In January of this year, it began helping small businesses buy Facebook ads.

Now MailChimp’s Instagram ad-buying feature aims to simplify the process of purchasing ads.

MailChimp’s strategy with these new ad-buying services and other functionality it’s recently added isn’t to give itself a new revenue stream. Instead, it’s offering them as part of its existing subscriptions at the same price as before. As with its freemium model, the company is betting that the more essential it can make itself to the way small businesses operate, the easier it will be to get large numbers of them to pay on an ongoing basis.

https://www.fastcompany.com/40424782/mailchimp-wants-to-solve-every-small-biz-marketing-challenge-even-snail-mail

Why It’s Hot
While most companies aim to leave their roots behind and move on to bigger and better customers, MailChimp is staying firmly committed to small businesses and providing them easy yet robust marketing support at a price most can afford.

Why would Amazon buy Slack? Workers of the world beware…

Posted on June 15, 2017 by April Spicer

Amazon is rumored to be mulling a purchase of Slack, the fast-growing corporate chat platform. A deal could give Slack a valuation of $9 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Slack now has 5 million daily users, including more than 1 million paying users.As of last year, Slack claimed 77 Fortune 100 companies among its clients.

It’s easy to see why Amazon would want to add a popular corporate communications tool to its suite of offerings to Amazon Web Services customers. But the more intriguing explanation of Amazon’s interest has to do with one of the company’s even bolder visions of the future.

Amazon is one of the major players in the fight for dominance in the realm of voice-activated artificial intelligence. As of January, Amazon had sold more than 11 million of its Echo home device, according to a report by the investment banker Morgan Stanley. Lex, the conversation interface that powers the Echo, already has a Slack integration.

Acquiring Slack could position Amazon for shaping the way workers use voice-activated technology at a time when Slack is already considered a possible email slayer. Just think of what bringing all that work data to the Echo’s capabilities would mean for the worker—and the further blurring of any remaining line between work and home.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/why-would-amazon-want-to-buy-slack/530430/?utm_source=atltw

Why It’s Hot
The fight to keep work and personal time separate is real. Keep your eyes on this one as the line continues to blur.

Condoms or IUD? Ask Tia…

Posted on June 8, 2017 by April Spicer

Ask Tia is an iOS app designed to assist and inform women about reproductive and sexual health. Through personal, private text-based conversations, users can find the best birth control, get answers to sexual health questions, find doctors, and track periods and symptoms. It’s the first product from Tia, a company “for millennials by millennials” that aims to help women make informed healthcare decisions.

Building a trusting relationship with an app isn’t easy. Tia has prioritized personalizing the information for each user. Even a simple question about missing a birth control pill has several factors (type of pill, where in your cycle, etc.), which is why Tia’s guiding questions and personalized assessments so much more valuable than, say, a Google search.

“Our goal is to expand Tia to be your comprehensive go-to women’s health assistant for all of your health care information needs,” says Witte, Tia’s co-founder and CEO.

https://magenta.as/simplifying-the-search-for-birth-control-with-a-conversational-interface-e98d0b2a5af1

Why It’s Hot
Sexual health support made accessible through behavioral insight? Yes please.

Start brushing off your resume…

Posted on June 1, 2017 by April Spicer

The Mirai is Toyota’s car of the future. It runs on hydrogen fuel cells, gets 312 miles on a full tank and only emits water vapor. So, to target tech and science enthusiasts, the brand is running thousands of ads with messaging crafted based on their interests.

The catch? The campaign was written by IBM’s supercomputer, Watson. After spending two to three months training the AI to piece together coherent sentences and phrases, Saatchi LA began rolling out a campaign last week on Facebook called “Thousands of Ways to Say Yes” that pitches the car through short video clips.

Saatchi LA wrote 50 scripts based on location, behavioral insights and occupation data that explained the car’s features to set up a structure for the campaign. The scripts were then used to train Watson so it could whip up thousands of pieces of copy that sounded like they were written by humans.

http://www.adweek.com/digital/saatchi-la-trained-ibm-watson-to-write-thousands-of-ads-for-toyota/

Why It’s Hot
May let us focus more on the design; less on the production.

AR Is Coming To Banner Ads

Posted on May 11, 2017 by April Spicer

Augmented reality has been in stasis for the last couple of years, with app developers and gadget-makers still figuring out a mainstream use-case to trump the Pokémon GO phenomenon. London-based startup Blippar thinks the answer lies in advertising.

Blippar says a major car manufacturer will start showing augmented reality ads using Blippar’s software this month. Blippar won’t say what other brands it is working with, but suggests the tech could be used for ads displaying clothes, and offer a means to use your smartphone camera to see what a jacket might look like on you.

The company says that an augmented reality banner ad would cost between $7 and $15 per 1,000 impressions, which is about average for rich media ads that already include audio and video. AR components can be seen on camera-equipped Android devices and will soon be accessible on Apple iOS.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2017/05/08/augmented-reality-banner-ads-blippar/#5b2e2e3b45d9

Why It’s Hot
Could banners have found their savior? Let the measurement begin!

Going Digital to Rescue Food

Posted on May 5, 2017 by April Spicer

About 40 percent of all food in America is wasted. Much of it ends up in landfills, where it emits dangerous-to-the-planet methane gas. At the same time, one out of eight American households don’t have enough to eat.

Wasted food. Hungry people. How do we get the two to meet?

Last month, food rescue made a leap to a national scale. Feeding America matches donors and recipients with an algorithm. A restaurant can go on Meal Connect to post an offer of, say, eight trays of fried chicken and biscuits. Meal Connect will automatically match that offer with the closest food pantry or soup kitchen that can get it up right away.

Meal Connect makes it possible to rescue prepared food and smaller quantities of food — and to do so quickly. “This allows us to provide real hot meals — virtually at the same time that someone coming off the street and paying for it would get it,” she said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/opinion/going-digital-to-rescue-food.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0

Why It’s Hot
When the scale and reach of digital is brought to bear on social issues, huge problems become more surmountable.

Spotify keeps on rocking with Lastminute.com partnership

Posted on April 28, 2017 by April Spicer

There’s always one song that brings back memories of a really great holiday. This intrinsic link between music and travel is the idea behind Lastminute.com’s new partnership with Spotify. And according to data, a large percentage of lastminute.com consumers are also Spotify users, meaning the collaboration appears to be a win-win for both brands.

The partners are producing a series of interactive maps, playlists and podcasts – each one linked to 10 different destinations.

Each city is broken down by area, with playlists bringing to life the distinct sounds of each one. For instance, East London’s playlist includes songs by local artists like Dizzee Rascal and Katy B. Alongside this, the campaign will include a series of podcasts, each featuring an international artist giving insight into the music scene of their home city. And each user will receive personalized recommendations aligned to their music and travel tastes.

https://econsultancy.com/blog/69032-lastminute-com-partners-with-spotify-to-target-music-loving-travellers/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=econblog

Why It’s Hot
Spotify continues to set the bar for leveraging data in meaningful ways to deepen relationships with customers.

The Amazon “stock market”

Posted on April 6, 2017 by April Spicer

Just beneath the placid surface of a typical product page on Amazon lies an unseen world, a system where third-party vendors can sell products alongside Amazon’s own goods. It’s like a stock market, complete with day traders, code-slinging quants, artificial intelligence algorithms and, yes, flash crashes.

Sellers of commodity items on Amazon are constantly monitoring and updating their prices, sometimes hundreds of thousands of times a day across thousands of items, says Mr. Kaziuk nas. Most use “rules-based” pricing systems, which simply seek to match competitors’ prices or beat them by some small fraction. If those systems get into bidding wars, items offered by only a few sellers can suffer sudden price collapses — “flash crashes.”

It’s clear, after talking to sellers and the software companies that empower them, that the biggest of these vendors are growing into sophisticated retailers in their own right. The top few hundred use pricing algorithms to battle with one another for the coveted “Buy Box,” which designates the default seller of an item. It’s the Amazon equivalent of a No. 1 ranking on Google search, and a tremendous driver of sales.

http://news.morningstar.com/all/dow-jones/us-markets/20170326515/the-high-speed-trading-behind-your-amazon-purchase.aspx

Why It’s Hot
Getting under the hood of how retail monster Amazon operates is always fascinating. The idea that prices are updating hundreds of thousands of times a day is nuts.

Alexa, we have a problem

Posted on March 23, 2017 by April Spicer

Google Home is about to offer a feature Amazon’s Alexa can’t match: finds from local stores.

The new feature is powered by local inventory feeds sent by retailers that buy ads on Google. In the past year, local shopping queries have increased 45 percent and the search giant has doubled the number of retailers that send local inventory feeds.

With this new feature, Google is offering users something Amazon doesn’t — a way to find merchandise at your local store and try before you buy.

It’s all part of Google’s long-term strategy to develop products and services that use artificial intelligence to make it easier for people to interact with computers – that, in turn, will feed into Google’s ad-based business model.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/03/21/google-home-vs-amazon-echo-for-shopping.html

Why It’s Hot
-It continues the local digital trend that’s grown over the past couple of years
-It’s also another interesting bridge between eCommerce and advertising – with a healthy mix of IoT thrown in

IoT Oh My!

Posted on March 16, 2017 by April Spicer

Sex toy maker We-Vibe has agreed to pay customers up to C$10,000 (£6,120) each after shipping a “smart vibrator” which tracked owners’ use without their knowledge.

The We-Vibe 4 Plus is a £90 bluetooth connected vibrator, which can be controlled through an app. Its app-enabled controls can be activated remotely, allowing, for instance, a partner on the other end of a video call to interact.

But the app came with a number of security and privacy vulnerabilities, allowing anyone within bluetooth range to seize control of the device.

In addition, data is collected and sent back to Standard Innovation, letting the company know about the temperature of the device and the vibration intensity – which, combined, reveal intimate information about the user’s sexual habits.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/14/we-vibe-vibrator-tracking-users-sexual-habits

Why It’s Hot
As we continue to talk about our bodies as the ultimate database – along with the opportunities and risks that entails – few examples seem as illustrative as this!

Girl, “Manterrupted”

Posted on March 7, 2017 by April Spicer

To mark International Women’s Day on March 8, ad agency BETC Sao Paolo, has created an app to measure what it is calling “Manterruptions”—a kind of ruder, elder brother to mansplaining (and cousin to manspreading), which analyzes conversations, and calculates how many interruptions by men have taken place.

The app is accompanied by a series of posters designed by female artists to highlight the issue and a website to rally support.

http://www.womaninterruptedapp.com/

Why It’s Hot
It’s a clever and fun way to bring attention – and hopefully change – to a real and serious issue of inequality.

If a picture paints a thousand words…

Posted on March 2, 2017 by April Spicer

Experts who want to pierce North Korea’s extreme secrecy have to be creative. One surprisingly rich resource: the country’s own propaganda, like the photo below.

Thanks to high-tech forensics, analysts and intelligence agencies are using photos to track North Korea’s internal politics and expanding weapons programs with stunning granularity.

The bomb, Kim’s outfit, the entourage and the missile have all been thoroughly dissected

Analysts believe some details may have been deliberately revealed to demonstrate the country’s growing capabilities. Whereas most such images are doctored, if only to improve Mr. Kim’s appearance, they noticed that this was conspicuously unretouched — perhaps a message to the foreign intelligence agencies who conduct such analyses.

Whereas analysts had long doubted the country’s grandiose claims, analysts said, “2016 was about showing us all the capabilities that we had mocked.”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/24/world/asia/north-korea-propaganda-photo.html?_r=0

Why It’s Hot
As countries around the world debate security and the measures appropriate to ensure it, we must remain vigilant against unintended consequences to areas like privacy and data protection.

Cellphones as a literal lifeline

Posted on February 23, 2017 by April Spicer

Many refugees consider smartphones instrumental in their journey to safety. Google Maps helps them navigate across the sea. Translation apps provide a rudimentary understanding of the language in new lands. WhatsApp and Viber allow them to chat with loved ones back home.

And almost everyone carries photos of the family and friends left behind.

Photojournalist Grey Hutton photographed dozens of refugees and their phones at a refugee center in Berlin for VICE Germany. The idea for the project came to him after reading complaints about refugees carrying smartphones.

Why It’s Hot
In our current political and cultural environment where debate about refugees and illegal immigrants rages, it’s great to see technology used as both a tool to help people in need and one that humanize those in need to create greater empathy.

Taobao villages: “E-commerce runs toward the road of happiness”

Posted on February 16, 2017 by April Spicer

Daiji township is a dusty collection of villages in China’s central heartland plains. It was described in a recent article in a Chinese magazine as a place “synonymous with backwardness, the unwanted stepchild of Shandong province.”

But in 2016, Daiju sold 1.8 billion yuan ($26.2 million) worth of acting and dance costumes.

“Made in China” is nothing new. But the internet and e-Commerce specifically have exponentially increased the volume and reach of manufacturing, changing the face of the country. Half of Daiji’s 45,000 residents now produce or sell costumes—ranging from movie-villain attire to cute versions of snakes, alligators, and monkeys on Alibaba-owned Taobao.

And Daiji is not the only rural town in China dramatically changed by globalization. In November 2016, China’s State Council Office on Poverty Alleviation, along with 16 other ministries, released guidelines calling for a massive expansion of e-commerce in rural areas as part of the fight against poverty.

Why It’s Hot
In the current political environment where countries like the U.S., the U.K. and France are looking for ways to preserve jobs of old, looking at countries that continually push to capitalize on globalization may help us to embrace change rather than hide from it.

When programmatic goes wrong

Posted on February 14, 2017 by April Spicer

Jaguar Land Rover has ceased all digital advertising in the UK after an investigation revealed it was funding terror organizations without its knowledge.

According to reports the car marque’s programmatic ads were among a number of brands indirectly paying Islamic extremists, white supremacists and pornographers.

Ads for the Jaguar F-Pace have appeared on YouTube next to a pro-Isis video that has been viewed more than 115,000 times. It has since been removed.

In a statement Jaguar said: “Jaguar Land Rover is very concerned by reports that advertising featuring our brands may benefit extremist and other inappropriate on-line media. This is an unintended consequence of algorithm technology used on some video-sharing websites.

http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/02/12/jaguar-land-rover-pulls-ads-amid-terror-funding-investigations

Why It’s Hot
-It reminds us that algorithms and quant data are not everything. Our ability to monitor, evaluate and draw learnings is key
-It also is a reminder of our responsibility, liability and yes sometimes vulnerability in engagements with our clients. I can imagine the phone calls Jaguar’s UK agency received. We need to be able to justify our decisions but also deal with our mistakes when they happen (and they will happen. and we will have each other’s backs!)

Yummy, I’ve got tech in my tummy

Posted on February 9, 2017 by April Spicer

Ingestibles – i.e. tech you consume and either dissolves or you “pass” – aren’t new. The medical field in particular has been experimenting for years with things like cameras you swallow instead of taking tubes down your GI tract.

But powering this tech has been an issue. This week MIT researchers announced that they have developed a new safe-to-swallow battery powered by stomach acid. They explain it like this:

“Remember those lemon-powered batteries from middle school science class? It’s essentially the same thing. With lemon batteries, the citric acid connects the two electrodes — usually a galvanized nail and a copper penny. Researchers simply replicated the system, attaching zinc and copper electrodes to the surface of the ingestible sensor.”

http://inhabitat.com/mit-researchers-invent-an-ingestible-battery-powered-by-stomach-acid/

Why It’s Hot
Uses for technology explode year-on-year but the energy to power these applications has long been a limiting factor. Alternative power sources – especially ones that are environmentally responsible – will open up amazing new avenues for tech.

Hot Sauce

Weekly Drops of Inspiration

Author Archives: April Spicer